Blockchain Video Distribution Network Lino Raises $20M USD in Funding

Decentralized autonomous video startup Lino has raised $20 million in funding through a private token sale led by Chinese seed investor ZhenFund.

Lino said that it will use the new funding to build its video distribution network with blockchain technology. Other investors in the round include FBG Capital, DFund, and INBlockchain.

Based in California, Lino aims to create a decentralized autonomous content economy, where content value can be recognized efficiently and all contributors can be incentivized directly and effectively to promote long-term economic growth.

Despite the booming industry, video content providers, especially live streaming broadcasters who create the content that is driving the boom, have only earned meager rewards. The existing business model squeezes billions of dollars out of users and broadcasters by charging commissions, service fees, and through push advertising, while broadcasters struggle to squeeze pennies.

Lino said the solution to this problem is to create a collectively owned, decentralized means of distribution, which ensures all content value is directly distributed to content creators and affiliated contributors without going through a privately owned entity as a middleman.

The company plans to do this by providing five key infrastructure components, which includes free transactions, incentivized currency system, proof of content value, proof of human engagement – prevents bots from manipulating the reward distribution – and auctioning Content Delivery Network (CDN) and storage.

The company’s LINO tokens will be used to incentivize people for providing contributions, such as content creation, curation, infrastructure services, and application development. Video content providers will be rewarded for providing great content, and audiences can be rewarded for curating content.

“We believe that blockchain has enormous potential to empower video creators by decentralizing how their content is distributed and ensuring that their earnings go directly into their pockets,” said Wilson Wei, CEO of Lino. “We want to eliminate the middlemen in video streaming.”